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Goal Planning For Fitness

When you have fitness goals you should break them down in to smaller blocks of time. I prefer to analyze and re-evaluate goals every Monday. With the first Monday of every month set aside for weigh-ins and measurements. The reason for doing this is because it's too easy to lose track of a long-term goals when you are not taking the time to plan, track and think about how must get there.

Organizing goals on Monday allows you to:

- Start each week fresh - Learn from mistakes from the previous week but put them behind you and move on - Change fitness routines so they continue to be progressive - Monday is the most productive and busy day. Your mental energy is at its highest. - Usually after most weekends you want to start exercising and eating healthy anyway!

Psychologically, Monday is a new start. They are like New Years but in a much smaller time frame. I use Monday as a kind of "goal-checkpoint."

To say "I want to lose 10 pounds in 2 months" is a very realistic goal. You could just work out and eat right for the next 8 weeks and you could lose the weight. Or you could not. Charting your goals is a way for you to make certain that what you set out to do will be achieved. It prevents disappointment and wasting your own time and energy.

Let's look at this goal in a series of micro goals:

If you took those eight weeks and broke them up in to 8 week steps:

- You need to lose approximately 1.25 pounds every week - You need to have a calorie deficit of 625 calories a day (this means to burn 625 more calories than consumed/used) - You need to make sure you get in 3-5 workouts per/week. This is what I would recommend for this goal. - You need to monitor your diet to make sure you are eating about 20% fat, 40% protein and 40% carbs to achieve this goal.

Goal planning is an important component to any fitness program. Picking one day a week to re-evaluate, make workouts just a little harder and to make tweaks and changes where necessary to your program will help you to accomplish whatever goal it is you are after.

Track it!

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